Chennai: ISRO chairman K Sivan said today once again Indian scientists have shown their excellence as the PSLV injected the HysIS precisely into a 636-km orbit.
“Subsequently, after two manoeuvres of stage four, the PSLV injected 30 customer satellites in designated different orbits,” he said.
Speaking about payload HysIS, Sivan said it is a satellite built with state-of-the-art technology.
“The heart of the system required is an optical imaging detector chip. This chip is indigenously developed by the space application centre, and was fabricated at the conductors lab in Chandigarh. I am sure the teams can be proud of the satellite as this is an excellent space asset to India,” he said.
Speaking about the injection of the customer satellites, he said the way PSLV injected the co-passengers, our customers will be happy that their babies have been delivered safely.
“The way PSLV performed and injected the satellites shows how precisely the mission has happened,” he added.
Speaking about future projects, Sivan said, “The road ahead of us is full of traffic. The heaviest satellite made in India – GSAT 11 – will be launched from French Guiana 5 December. This will be followed by the launch of GSAT 7A using GSLV in December. Next year, Chandrayaan 2 will be launched and we have lined up with other projects as well,” he added.
Earlier in the day, ISRO’s workhorse rocket, PSLV-C43, successfully injected into orbit India’s earth observation satellite HysIS. The 30 other co-passenger international satellites, including those from the United States of America and Australia, among others were also put into orbit.
The rocket lifted off majestically into cloudy skies in a burst of orange flames at 9.57 am from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Spaceport at the end of the 28-hour countdown.
The HysIS was placed in orbit 17 minutes and 27 seconds after lift-off.
Sivan and the space agency’s scientists broke into cheers as the earth observation satellite was injected into sun-synchronous polar orbit. The primary mission of the Hyper Spectral Imaging Satellite (HysIS), whose mission life is five years, is to study the earth’s surface in visible near infrared and shortwave infrared regions of the electromagnetic spectrum.
It is the primary satellite of the PSLV-C43 mission, which is on its 45th flight.
The mass of the spacecraft is about 380 kg, and the satellite would be placed in 636 km-polar sun synchronous orbit with an inclination of 97.957 degree, ISRO said.
The co-passenger satellites have been contracted for launch through ISRO’s commercial arm Antrix Corporation Limited.
PSLV-C43, is the ‘Core Alone’ version of PSLV. It is the lightest version of the launch vehicle. This is ISRO’s second launch in this month. The space agency had launched its latest communication satellite GSAT-29 on board GSLVMkIII-D2 on 14 November.